"I have good news and bad news.  The good news is, I got a job!  The bad news is…I got…a…jooooooob…!" and promptly broken down sobbing.

Which is probably why I got a job now, and not two months ago.  I think I was psychically keeping all employment at bay, because I didn't really want it.

I got a job in a law firm.  A very good one, actually, very nice indeed.  But it doesn't look at all like the "writer's life" I thought I'd still be leading now.  Remember a few months ago when, using intentional meditation tools a la The Secret, I manifested a way out of the corporate world and into a well-paying part-time writing gig?  And then remember when that writing gig went bye-bye in a most indelicate way and my world was turned upside-down?

I spent my summer swimming in a sweaty, satin-lined suit jacket and a pair of pants that technically didn't match (and just prayed no one would notice), traipsing from one interview to another, trying to replace the corporate job I lost before my short-lived adventure as a ghostwriter.  I needed the job because I needed rent money, food, health insurance.  But I deeply dreaded getting an offer.

All I could think about were those last few months at my prior law firm job, when every minute dripped off the clock like a dollop of mucilage.  Every task felt heavy beneath my fingertips with an agonizing familiarity and pointlessness.  The walls were blindingly beige.  I was plagued by the realization that being a legal secretary was not the life I was surely meant to live.  I was born to write.  This was not "being a writer".

Time had moved too fast.  I was actually starting to meet grown-up people who'd been born in years like 1984, years of which I could tell you exactly what handbag I was carrying.   And some of those people have books on the shelves at Barnes & Noble with their names on the spines.

So when an unconventional opportunity to escape the corporate world and write for a living came along, I jumped at the chance.  Wouldn't you?  Unfortunately, my employer turned out to be mentally unstable.  My golden opportunity shone with all the luster of a toilet bowl of beer-pee.

There were times during the summer when I remember saying, "I can't go back to another office job.  I can't.  You don't understand – my soul will wither and die inside of me."  And I wasn't just being melodramatic, either.  I meant it.

Well, here I am again, back in an office building, Monday through Friday, nine to five.  Back in a world of water coolers and the whoosh of central air, sensible flat shoes and feeling elated when your favorite stall in the ladies' room is free.  Back to a structured world, where people notice when you're not where you're supposed to be, and there's a form they can fill out about it.  Back to finding that happy medium between keeping the busy-bodies at bay and being friendly enough to find those few like-minds.

And are you surprised to know that I'm not miserable?

You see, I learned something while I was unemployed.  Working by day brings out the warrior in me.

Now you'd think with all that free time this past summer, I would've made rocket-speed progress on my memoir, and probably reupholstered something and sewn myself a new fall wardrobe too, right?

Wrong.  It turns out, being jobless can really do a number on your self-esteem.  By the middle of July, things that otherwise meant the world to me held no allure.  I think they call it clinical depression.  My writing muscle was in particular danger of atrophy.

I did all kinds of things to fight it.  It became a laborious struggle to get out of the apartment, even though every day, a big part of me was dying to look at anything other than my own four walls.  Unless I had a job interview scheduled, I couldn't bring myself to step into the shower before 3:00 PM.  And I watched brain-rotting things on TV like "Maury".  I knew what time of day it was based on what side of Bob Barker the sun was falling on.  And I lived with the terrible, everpresent feeling of being pulled in two.  Wanting to feel better, and yet feeling powerless to do anything about it.  

Some days I'd think about walking to the nearest Starbuck's just to get some fresh air and a change of scenery, but, as weird as this sounds, my nearest Starbuck's was too close to home.  It began to feel like an extension of my apartment.  Going for an iced chai latte didn't take me far enough away from the hopelessness and monotony that home suggested.  I was sick of home, and yet comforted and voluntarily coccooned by it at the same time.  So I started getting on buses and just riding them randomly until I saw another Starbuck's.  I might end up four neighboorhoods away, but it made me feel like I'd really gone somewhere.

I began to understand how much I needed a job to get up for in the morning.  A place I had to be, and if I didn't show, there'd be consequences.  How much I needed a schedule to work my grand plans around.  How much I needed to interact with other people.  All the things that I hated about working -- things I was so joyful to leave behind only a few months before.  I couldn't wait to turn my back on that pesky requirement of having to show up by 9:00 AM or else.  It felt so demeaning.  I was giddy to leave behind the rigidity of a regular work schedule.  God, how confining! The artist in me surely would flourish in a more free-form life!  I was impatient to leave behind all those pain-in-the-ass people that tend make life so untidy.

But I need routine.  And I need people, even the less pleasant ones.  Dare I say, I even need the perceived "trap" of a corporate job?  And why?  Because in combination, they make me work harder.

My inner warrior is alert, present, and aware.  She thinks on her feet and always finds a way.  She's a truly brilliant multi-tasker with eyes in the back of her head.  And once she gets on a roll -- look out.

At work, I know when those lawyers are going to sneeze before they do.  "Kim, could you draft a…?"  Oh.  Never mind.  And my drycleaning?  Swooped in and picked it up on my way home yesterday.  And that little problem with the phone company?  Solved.  Squeezed in a few minutes before lunch to nip that in the bud.  Exercise?  Treadmill, 20 minutes, 7.5 elevation, every weekday morning at 6:00.  Keys? Check.  Umbrella?  Check.  Check?  Check.  When I have no choice but to keep moving, I tend to develop a powerful momentum.

And writing?  Baby, I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you're a man, 'cause I'm a wriiiiiiter…W-R-I-T-E-R…

During my first week at the new job, I was tentative.  I settled in, got used to waking with the sun, laid low and scoped things out.  But the following Monday, I brought my laptop to the office and started locking it in a file drawer behind my desk.  I brought my battery charger, too, and plugged it in next to my CPU.  There are no electric outlets in the firm's lunch room, but the set-up is pleasant, with little café tables overlooking a panoramic view of Manhattan and all-you-can-guzzle soft drinks from the restaurant-style fountain.  Every day at lunchtime, I unlock my trusty, freshly-powered little second-hand Vaio, pop my official "memoir" thumb drive off my keychain, and head to my favorite table near the microwave.  My average 45-minute output is 11 single-spaced pages.  And it's not just gibberish, either – we're talking about good, useable writing.  I've already written more since returning to work than I did the entire time I was out of it.

So as much as I feel like every minute I'm working in a law firm is not reflecting my true purpose, it's actually crucial to my writing success.  It's the only way I'll get things done.  And there's more.  Feeling useful and productive, even if it's for the ultimate benefit of some faceless boardroom of suits, helps me maintain a positive state of mind, and without that, I can't be my creative best.

No way am I going to let a little thing like necessary employment keep me from finishing my memoir.  That would never work for me.